Empedocles of Acragas
Colin Davies introduces the Greek philosopher and physician who flourished in Sicily during the fifth century B.C.
The modern conception of the scientist, with single-minded painstaking approach to evidence and analysis, is far removed from the often flamboyant extroversion of some of the earliest pioneers of scientific investigation. This is particularly true of the fifth-century Greek philosopher-scientist Empedocles of Acragas, or Agrigentum, in Sicily. Worshipped as a democrat by the people because he' succeeded in overthrowing the oppressive rule of the nobility, he refused the crown that they gratefully offered him. His popularity was enhanced by his extraordinary powers as a physician which his fellow countrymen regarded as miraculous. He was reputed to have awakened from the dead a woman who for thirty days had been ‘without pulse or breath’, and if we doubt the truth of this tradition, it nevertheless indicates the awe in which his medical skill was regarded.
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